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The cooper knocked off the second or quarter hoops from each of these casks, and drove them on again with two "beckets" or loops of rope firmly jammed under each of them in such a manner that the loops were in line with each other on each side of the bunghole. They were then lowered overboard, and a long rope rove through all the beckets.
I won't have it! 'Why not now? no, not in the Beckets' house. Very well then, at least she might make it certain that I should see her in England. After trouble enough, she at last consented to this. She was to come back with Mr. Becket and the boys, and then go to her people. I got her promise that she would write to me and make an appointment somewhere or other. More whisky?"
Other questions from him brought out the story of my boy-life; Drake, Gen. Jackson, the negro boys and the brutal negress; then my trip to St. Louis but I omitted the hornet's-nest incident. I also told this kindly stranger that I had started out to make a living for myself and intended to succeed. Then he asked me where I was staying, and I told him of the Beckets.
By this means the mast is kept upright, and the buoy prevented from upsetting. The weight at the end of the rod is arranged so as to afford secure footing for two persons, should that number reach it; and there are also, as I said before, large rope beckets, through which others can thrust their head and shoulders, till assistance is rendered.
But it resulted in bad feeling between us. We kept our tempers, however, and kept the maddened men away from us until they died, one by one; then, with the wheel in beckets, and the ship steering herself before the wind, we hove the bodies overboard. There was no funeral service now; we had become savages. "'Well, said the mate, as the last body floated astern, 'that's done. Take your wheel.
Give me a line," cried Arnold, springing over the rail without stopping to divest himself of his clothing. Harry dashed to the rail and seized the ring life preserver from its beckets. As Arnold rose to the surface and reached out for the unfortunate man from the schooner, Harry flung the ring-buoy with unerring aim. It fell true, and within Arnold's reach.
Drake's old negro woman; how much abuse I had suffered at her hands and the widow sympathized with me deeply. She also told me that I was welcome to stay with them until such time as I was able to get employment. So I remained with the Beckets three days, during all of which time I tried hard to get work, but without success.
These reflections passed through my mind as I stood peering through the tube at the becalmed barque; it did not need a very prolonged scrutiny to enable me to learn all that was possible of her at that distance, and presently I replaced the glass in its beckets, and proceeded to saunter fore and aft the deck, from the wake of the main rigging to the wheel grating, smoking meditatively the while.
"Ay, ay, Bob, old man!" replied I; "I think we may manage to do that without much difficulty. You get one of the air-guns out of the beckets, whilst I look after this coffee it's just on the boil and we'll try the virtues of cold lead upon his constitution, and the powers of the gun at the same time."
As a result, though ripped, twisted, broken, and disintegrated, she still floated even on her beam ends. "But the soaked hemp rigging and canvas might be enough to drag the craft down, and with this fear in my mind I acted quickly. Singing out to the men to hang on, I made my way aft to where we had an ax, lodged in its beckets on the after house.
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